Poems

Borderbus

A dónde vamos where are we goingSpeak in English or the guard is going to comeA dónde vamos where are we goingSpeak in English or the guard is gonna get us hermanaPero qué hicimos but what did we doSpeak in English come onNomás sé unas pocas palabras I just know a few words

You better figure it out hermana the guard is right thereSee the bus driver

Tantos días y ni sabíamos para donde íbamosSo many days and we didn't even know where we were headed

I know where we're goingWhere we always goTo some detention center to some fingerprinting hall or cubeSome warehouse warehouse after warehouse

Where are we going I am telling you I came from HondurasWe haven’t eaten anything and where are we going to sleep

I don’t want to talk about it just tell themThat you came from nowhereI came from nowhereAnd we crossed the border from nowhereAnd now you and me and everybody else here isOn a bus to nowehere you got it?

Pero por eso nos venimos para salir de la nadaBut that’s why we came to leave all that nothing behind

When the bus stops there will be more nothingWe’re here hermana

Y esas gentes quiénes sonno quieren que siga el camiónNo quieren que sigamosEstán bloqueando el busA dónde vamos ahoraThose people there who are theythey don't want the bus to keep goingthey don't want us to keep goingnow they are blocking the busso where do we go

What?

He tardado 47 días para llegar acá no fue fácil hermana45 días desde Honduras con los coyotes los que se—buenoya sabes lo que les hicieron a las chicas allí mero en frentede nosotros pero qué íbamos a hacer y los trenes los trenescómo diré hermana cientos denosotros como gallinas como topos en jaulas y verduraspudriendóse en los trenes de miles me oyes de miles y se resbalabande los techos y los desiertos de Arizona de Tejas sed y hambresed y hambre dos cosas sed y hambre día tras día hermanay ahora aquí en este camión y quién sabe a dóndevamos hermana fíjate vengo desde Brownsville dónde nos amarrarony ahora en California pero todavía no entramos y todavía el bordoestá por delanteIt took me 47 days to get here it wasn't easy hermana45 days from Honduras with the coyotes the ones that—wellyou know what they did to las chicasright there in front of us so what were we supposedto do and the trains the trains how can I tell you hermana hundredsof us like chickens like gophers in cages and vegetablesrotting on trains of thousands you hear me of thousands and they slidfrom the rooftops and the deserts of Arizona and Texas thirst and hungerthirst and hunger two things thirst and hunger day after day hermanaand now here on this bus of who-knows-where we are goinghermana listen I come from Brownsville where they tied us upand now in California but still we're not inside and still the borderlies ahead of us

I told you to speak in English even un poquitothe guard is going to think we are doing somethingpeople are screaming outsidethey want to push the bus back

La libertad viene desde muy adentroallí reside todo el dolor de todo el mundoel momento en que purguemos ese dolor de nuestras entrañasseremos libres y en ese momento tenemos quellenarnos de todo el dolor de todos los serespara liberarlos a ellos mismosFreedom comes from deep insideall the pain of the world lives therethe second we cleanse that pain from our gutswe shall be free and in that moment we have tofill ourselves up with all the pain of all beingsto free them—all of them

The guard is coming wellnow what maybe they'll take usto another detention center we'll eat we’ll have a floora blanket toilets water and each otherfor a while

No somos nada y venimos de la nadapero esa nada lo es todo si la nutres de amorpor eso venceremosWe are nothing and we come from nothingbut that nothing is everything, if you feed it with lovethat is why we will triumph

More by Juan Felipe Herrera

see my brother-in-law with a styled shirt
in spite of his cancer below
then a small dinner in the evening the next day
no one knows except I may be on the road
Mesquite where my father settled in '31
forty-five minutes west then a left you go in
sister Sarita waits for me on Abby Street
after decades in separate families we just met
now I hear the clock snap I swipe an ant
time to walk my dogs five blocks and back
a different route to soothe the mind
it is the same one but I am hopeful

longtime hermano Bob tells me
one of the monks in brown directs us to the deep sink
made of two sinks the hose & the silver table where all
the spoons & metal tongs are clean
wait at the entrance for directions the monk gave me
but he is in there & points me to another sink
made of two sinks & a silver table where all
the spoons & metal tongs are clean
scrub off the rice burned at the bottom
there it is clinging to the sides of the steel
outside working the hole in the earth
three monks in brown stir the blackish pots boiling
four mouths of mud cakes for the new lunar year
the dragon the people the monastery the mountains
one monk stands staring into the nothing
no thoughts around him
the other monk descends through the scaly fog two
children angle an exploded tree limb back & forth
so the sparks play with them to the left
the meditation hall is curved & faces Escondido
down below where my father drove his army truck
& pulled our trailer to a stop on Lincoln Road in ‘54
I watered spidered corn & noticed the deportations
little friends gone the land left to ice alone
lunch is served we go to the line the spoons
and the speckled tongs await by the brown rice
white rice eggplant kim chee & a grey shade pot
pour the seaweed soup we go with our tray & sit
the mud cakes are ribboned in red & gold & green
there is a way to do this
it requires listening & seeing &
silence silence the bell rings
longtime hermano Bob & I at the parking lot
we leave brown cloth brown cloth
naked spoons naked pots
steam rises from the sink & the view
the view with no one in front or in back